Speak the truth or forever hold your peace
by madusagi
Summary: Set during their middle school years, Hope is a self-confident playboy who has never fully understood what it means to "love" or even "like" someone. Claire aka Lightning is an in the closet tsundere who has trouble fitting in with the people around her. When their paths cross neither truly understand the outstanding significance it means, or the underlying changes it will bring.


**This is a small story that I've been wanting to write for a while now. Hope and Lightning are my indefinite pair for life and with them there is no such notion of age boundaries~  
Feedback and Pm's are always welcome (good or bad/ maybe both 3)  
As always I hope you are anticipating what you are about to indulge your brains in.  
Please my children, enjoy.**

_They say that falling head over heels in love is supposed to be __**magical**__. A breath of fresh clean air that when inhaled, satisfies your whole being. They say that it's something that cannot be simply described with mere words or subtle gestures; it's much more._

_Personally, if a "breath of fresh air" refers to a breath of frigid tundra mist that when inhaled sends chills coursing through your body, leaving a noticeably burning sensation, then I must be the definition of head over heels in love, because I got it bad.  
_

Hope had written this feverishly in the spur of the moment. The millisecond Ms. Farron sprawled the daily writing assignment on the black board, **she** popped into his mind. Every mention of the word "love" and Hope would flinch uncannily, and then unknowingly allow himself to indulge in the very image of the girl his heart so innocently yearned for. The predicament however, that young Hope tragically found himself in was a truly pitiful unrequited love… or so he presumed. What he had failed to calculate was the way **this **girl expressed her love.

Hope Estheim, age 14, was undoubtedly the most—by many standards—audacious playboy in his school and possibly in the town of Bodhum. He knew his way around the female population and was not in the slightest fearful of using that quality to his wholehearted advantage.

If you had asked him had he ever been in a committed relationship, he would have not needed anytime to mull over his possible flings or considered his feelings for any girls he had ever "dated". His answer would have been an effortless "no". Trivialities such as relationships and liking someone else always appeared troubling and time consuming. He was 14, young and carefree, and that's truthfully how he preferred it. That was, until fate decided he needed to meet Lightning.

The first time he had ever laid eyes on her was on the first day of school 8th grade year, he saw her immediately as another pawn—another toy he could manipulate and occupy himself with. He automatically categorized her as, what he liked to call "Group B": better than you, and he wasn't too of base with it either.

"Are you new here?"

He approached her at her locker, making sure to stand on the left side of her so she couldn't open her door and block him, a typically move many Group B's try. She slowly eyed him, surprisingly making him uncomfortable, seldom something people could do to him.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't sure if you were new; you seem really familiar, that's why I'm asking." He chuckled a little, trying to calm himself down; this girl was full fledged staring into his soul. Her eyes looked more green than blue the closer he looked at it. He was so entranced in her eyes that he hadn't noticed he was leaning in uncomfortably close. The girl cleared her throat unnaturally out of embarrassment to draw his attention away from her eyes.

"Are you trying to hit on me?" she spoke coldly and agitated, sending shock through Hope that made him jump back a few inches.

"Excuse me? I was just trying to…"

"If that was your attempt at hitting on me, I suggest you reevaluate your pick up lines, because I've seen better."

The girl closed her locker with a 'THUD' and evaded Hope elegantly, allowing the fragrance of her hair to draft Hope's way as she passed him. Never in his life had a girl dismissed him so cold heartedly and pegged him so accurately. Most girls liked cheesy pick up lines and romantic stuff like sweet talking, however, this girl was unnaturally polar opposite.

Hope flung himself around trying to pin point the girl in the seemingly growing crowd. He had been so idiotic and was so fixated on her eyes that he sincerely forgot what color her hair was. There went his plan for chasing her down and asking for her name. He sighed loudly and tried to maneuver his way through the pack of wild beasts known as students to get to his first period.

...

The moment Lightning dismissed the boy and left him standing in his own self denial, she began swearing to herself furiously. She had been so taken back by a good looking boy wanting to talk to her that she said all the wrong things. This happened more than she preferred and it always deemed her with no friends.

She didn't see him standing by her, and didn't even hear his first question. The moment he spoke, she was so caught off guard by how good looking he was it took her a while to regain her thought process. His smile made her eyes hurt the more she looked at it, but it seemed so perfect it made her stare.

By the time the boy only stared at her did she say what was on her mind. It came out more severe and harsher than she would have liked. She was so frustrated with herself that it led to her blurting out more things she didn't mean to say, and the situation became so desperate to her that she just wanted to run away like a little kid. She did what she did best, and left. To her relief and disappointment, the cute boy didn't chase after her, but more of her didn't expect him too, no one ever did before.

...

It was the last period of the day and Hope had seen no sign of the girl again, prompting him to question whether he even saw her in the first place or if she was just a figure of his imagination that his brain conjured up. He laughed in relief to himself. It wouldn't have made any kind of sense if a girl openly dismissed him and embarrassed him to no end. He rather have had made up a girl in his mind that shamed him than meet one in real life.

To his utter disappointment, his imagination walked in through the door of his English class.

The eye contact shared between the two was intense and severe. The girl had stopped dead in her tracks and appeared like a wild animal seeing its natural enemy standing less than 10 feet from her. She immediately recoiled and walked outside, making Hope become evidently stupefied.

He was on his way out of his seat to go catch the girl to ask her what her problem was, but she had came back in the classroom with a solemn expression plastered on her face, and a overly jovial Ms. Farron following in her footsteps.

"Good morning class!"

Ms. Farron boasted as she wrote her name with embellished drawings circulating it. She turned around and eyed the classroom.

"Now I know it's the first day and all, but I believe order is key!" She clapped her hands loudly together as though she was doing a magic trick.

"Now everybody stand up!" She made the upwards motion with her arms. The students were looking around and hesitantly stood up one after another.

"Ms. Farron is this really order? Everyone just looks confused to me." You could hear the snickers from different parts of the room. Hope jokingly stated this to get a rouse out of the girl, but to his dismay she didn't flinch an inch. His cheeks began to inflate with air, something he did when he began to get frustrated.

"Now, if you would let me finish Mr. Puffy you would understand where the order comes in." Hope looked in confusion at for calling him such an odd name that he had no idea where it came from.

"Puffy?" Hope repeated to himself trying to make sense of the outrageous nickname. He heard a muffled laugh coming from his right where the girl stood. She had her hand covering her mouth and her head tilted to the side away from everybody. Her pink hair shook gingerly and Hope could see she was laughing to herself.

"Pinky, why are you laughing?" He asked baffled by her sudden change in character. She didn't turn and kept laughing while waving her hand at him implying it was nothing.

"Now Clary why don't you take this first seat here, I want you right in front of me so I can watch you." Ms. Farron interjected with an implying grin that no one knew what she was implying. The girl stopped laughing and whipped her head around to glare at her her.

"Serah, it's Claire not 'Clary'." Claire practically spit the words out at the teacher. Everyone stood where they stood, dropping previous conversation and actions. No one was sure if they were more caught off guard by Claire's attitude or that she called Serah. Hope immediately pieced together the puzzle and spoke his findings out loud.

"I get it, you two are sisters right? You both have pink hair, and look strikingly similar." Hope nodded to himself in satisfaction. You could hear the connections clicking together in peoples mind as they agreed with Hope.

"Very good , you are indeed correct. Your reward is…" Ms. Farron beat on her desk like it was a drum, rapidly accelerating. She abruptly halted and pointed to the desk behind were she assigned Claire's seat. "You get to sit behind my darling sister!" Hope's heart skipped a beat for a reason unknown to him and Claire made a loud "tsk" sound.

Fate had began to weave its strings.


End file.
